Gujral, a politician and diplomat, served as India's twelfth prime minister from April 1997 to March 1998. He was only the second prime minister to head the government without being elected to the Lok Sabha. Like his immediate predecessor HD Deve Gowda, Gujral was a member of the Rajya Sabha when he became prime minister.

Gujral was among Indira Gandhi's blue-eyed boys in the mid-1970s. He was information and broadcasting minister when Emergency was imposed on the country in 1975. In the mid-1980s, he quit the Congress and joined the nascent Janata Dal. He became minister for external affairs in the VP Singh-led National Front government in 1989 and had to handle the fallout of the Kuwait crisis following the Iraqi invasion in 1991 that displaced thousands of Indians.

What in your view was IK Gujral's contribution to India as a politician, diplomat and prime minister?